If the planets align and its a huge if, he'll be forced to sell Arsenal. That's really our only real hope of extricating ourselves from that family.

A huge settlement though could also mean, Arsenal without investment and living by our wits and good looks like I have done for years.

Considering the wealth Stan's Walmart heiress wife has this fee shouldn't be an issue. A $790m fee to pay is relatively a speck on the wall. Then there's that brand new Rams So-fi stadium he could draw money against towards it.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... ay-it-all/

From yesterday.

Apparently Tottingham have lost to the lowest ranked team in the Europa Conference League...

I bet Conte is digging out his contract to work out how he can exit.

Check out the defending from £40m Davison Sanchez for the 94th minute winner.
Conte’s quite after was quite funny, “After three weeks I am starting to understand the situation. It is not simple,” he said. “At this moment the level at Tottenham is not so high“

Let’s hope he takes a couple of years to not be able to sort it out.

I can’t see Conte having the patience to stay that long in any case. He only signed up to 18 months. My guess is he’ll ruthlessly root out some under performers and will be given some money to make some signings, who will be experienced players he’s previously worked with or knows well….but it won’t be the money he wants. He’ll look for quick fix and quick results and when they don’t come he’ll leave.

Yes, I think he has the personality to just walk away if he is not happy.

Saw highlights of Marseilles defeat against Galatasaray this week just now

Saliba had another mare. Cost his team another 2 goals, one where he needlessly tried to dribble the ball out then lost it then another when he was asleep for a free kick.

Seen a few reports that Xhaka is set to return to training ahead of schedule. With Partey off to ACN in mid december we need him back

Arsenal have 9 games between Saturday and the end of the year. 9 games in 32 days. We will need to see some rotation. Sunderland at home in the cup QF is the obvious place to start.

I wonder whether it is time to bring Ødegaard back in for Lacazette, particularly for a game like Newcastle at home where in theory we should be more dominant in possession and territory and may require some more guile and creativity.

Id expect Tierney to come back in and there should be some more minutes for Pépé, Martinelli, Holding, AMN over the next month.

One thing is for sure we need to avoid injuries to key players in this period. timing is crucial with injuries, get a 3 week knock as an International break comes up and you might miss 1 club game, get one in the coming month and you could miss 6 or 7

Hi Zed. The net worth of Ann Kroenke is $9.6b. With Stan’s net worth of $10.7b, as a couple together they’re therefore worth a net $20.3b. $790m is 4.1% of $20.3b. Obviously they’d rather not lose 4.1% of their family fortune but it’s not going to leave them in poverty if it happens. They won’t be moving from whichever of their huge ranches they reside in the most to sleeping in a cardboard box on the streets of the roughest part of Los Angeles.

Interestingly, the net worth of the Kroenke’s together ($20.3b) is actually more than the net worth of Manchester City’s owner, Sheikh Mansour who has $20.0b.

and your point is?

TG's point is that he's highly annoyed whenever anyone has an agenda against a particular Arsenal player, and that singling out one bad performance - as if any player doesn't occasionally make mistakes - is typical of the modern-day, Johnny-come-lately try-hard who calls themselves a fan. So, he'd certainly never do the same.

But Arsenal is nothing to do with his wife. So Kroenke's wealth is half of Mansour's essentially. Not sure why you keep mentioning her wealth as if she she should or could be helping in funding Arsenal.

What are your thoughts on this government led report on football governance? Some interesting points in there.

None really I was just making an observation

Isn’t it normal for married couples to have a range of individual and joint accounts? Me and my wife certainly do, and so do every married couple we know.

As you probably know, I collect fine wine. If I had the opportunity to buy some cases of an extraordinarily expensive wine that I couldn’t afford from my own personal accounts, would my wife let me use money from our joint accounts to buy it? Yes of course she would. If we still didn’t have enough from my personal and our joint accounts, if I convinced her it was a good investment, she’d also give me money from her own personal accounts?

Likewise, married couples routinely buy their properties together, not separately. We simply do not treat our money as hers or mine. Our family’s wealth is her and my money together.

Maybe you and your wife are different Darren. But if you are, I suspect you would be in a minority, certainly from the friends and family we know. I therefore believe it is relevant to consider Ann as well as Stan’s fortunes when considering the wealth of the Kroenke’s.

Sorry but I haven’t yet read the government led report on football governance.

very observant

Yeah we have a individual accounts that only I contribute too and a joint account that only I contribute to yet I still get lectured on the cost of my season ticket by the mrs and moaned at how frequently I attend games these days.

I agree with Darren really. I reckon if I was worth 20 billion like the kroenkes are and owned Arsenal and came home from work and said “ hey hun guess what ! I’ve signed Mbappe !!” I would be in serious danger of a John Wayne Bobbitt type situation. Their brains aren’t wired the same.

Yeah, chicks who don't want to buy the new Mbappe or a Chateau Lafite-Rothschild 1986 - how f&%#ing weird are they? Given half a chance, they'd probably waste your mutually-acquired cash on ... I don't know ... human rights or something. Mental.

Eh. It’s a bit early to be hitting the sauce already surely ?

True. There has never been any business dealings between them. The closest being that when Kroenke built his first malls they were near Walmarts. That's it.

She is the child of Sam Walton's brother, who invested in the business. She's lived off the stock inheritance since as far as anyone knows.

Their two kids aren't involved in her money. Josh went to his father's business and I think their daughter tried some Hollywood producing, not certain which parent funded it, maybe both.

Even I’ve got the 1986 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. Well done for including Rothschild in the name by the way. I rarely bother myself. Even better vintages were years like 1928, 1945, 1947 (the right bank wines for 1947 particularly) and 1961. I’ve had all the big eight of the 1961 vintage (the five first growths which are Lafite, Latour, Haut-Brion, Margaux and Mouton-Rothschild, plus Petrus, Cheval Blanc and Ausone. But sadly I’ve never tried any 1928s, 1945s or 1947s.

Don’t they both own Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche? I’ve certainly seen Ann listed as an owner of both clubs.

Hi Bernard,
Yes. Ann Walton Kroenke does own the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

That was my point Zed. As I thought does Stan, through KSE. Unless I’m missing something, that sounds like a joint business venture to me.

Oh good - A new Covid variant that spreads 5 times faster than 'Delta' called 'Omicron' from Sth Africa is out and about.

Wow - And I had locusts down for 2022.

All credit to COVID though, everyone is learning more of the Greek alphabet now.

Definitely a joint business venture Bernard.

What are you saying here Warrior ............... behold a pale horse and his name that sat on him was ....?

South Africa ....... Hmmm ........ I've cautioned Decaf multiple times on the dangers of eating under cooked warthog testes and porcupine livers .

Well I'm not taking any chances ; just opened a big bottle of Jim Beam ..... let's see how Omicron negotiates a haze of bourbon fumes .

True Rog but can you translate omicron without using Google or similar?

Tsk I'll give you a clue.

It's the opposite of the last letter of the Greek alphabet.

Think about it Alpha to .....


btw I'm not feeling confident ya know how we always seem to screw up these types of games when you have that feeling ya know if we don't beat this lot we'll never beat anyone.

C'mon Arsenal.

So… Willock Hatrick?

I thought those mopani worms tasted a bit gamy

To be fair, our scientists detected it, and South Africans are feeling a bit miffed at the unilateral reactions of the US and UK.

I don't fancy this afternoon, feels like Banana skin territory. Let's hope the bowels are wrong in this case.

Hattrick of own goals will do nicely

The server is undergoing a permission fix for the next little while.

Not sure if the forum will play up or not.

Should be ok though I hope.

We'll take your word for it, Rog.
Suddenly feeling a lot more confident ...

Has Willock even touched the ball?